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News

Laurel & MillyAug 21st, 2014

Add your event to Arts Daily!

The South Carolina Arts Commission's arts calendar, Arts Daily, has joined forces with The Hub. Now you can visit one place to view or submit arts news AND events!
Long-time Arts Daily users will notice that the revamped event submission process is simpler. You can also add your arts venue (if you haven't already) to The Hub's venue list through the Arts Daily submission process. Online readers of Arts Daily can search and sort events to find activities based on location, art form or type of event.
Is your event or opportunity right for Arts Daily? If it's arts-related, open to the public, and of interest to people in South Carolina, then yes! Event types include auditions, calls for entries & contests, classes, conferences, exhibitions, fellowships & residencies, openings, book signings, performances, screenings and more. You'll choose the type when you submit your event or opportunity.
To submit arts events to Arts Daily, use the Submit Events button. (Be sure to submit your event at least one month in advance.) If your event has an interesting news element, you can also send it to The Hub through the Submit Story button. Arts events submitted at least one month in advance will appear on the Arts Daily website, and some will be recorded for radio.

How to decide what to submit where

Submit Event to Arts Daily: Arts Daily listings and radio announcements are limited to the key details and a brief description of your event and will direct readers to your website or organization for a lengthier description.
Arts events submitted at least one month before the event will be posted to the online Arts Daily calendar. Not all events are recorded for the radio. The earlier you submit, the longer it will appear on the Arts Daily site for readers to find and the better chance the event will be recorded for radio. You can even submit an entire season at once!
Submit Story to The Hub: If your event has a news component, you can also submit a lengthier article or news release through The Hub's Submit Story button. Story submissions, if accepted, appear as articles on The Hub's main page and "roll off" the page as other articles are posted -- the lifespan of a Hub article is much shorter than an Arts Daily entry. Hub articles will direct readers to your website or organization for more information.
What makes an event newsworthy?
A few questions to ask: Does the event relate to a larger purpose (e.g., an artist's studio or gallery opening is a result of the arts reviving a downtown, a celebrity S.C. artist is participating to raise awareness and/or funds, a student exhibition illustrates the benefit of arts education, etc.)? Is this a first time for the event, or a milestone anniversary? Did the project break an attendance or fundraising record? Sometimes the news element occurs after an event when you're ready to share results and photos.
Bottom line: Submit ALL arts events to Arts Daily, at least one month in advance. Submit more info about your event to The Hub ONLY if there is an extra news element.
Remember, you may also use the Submit Story button to send your feature articles, blog posts, stories, etc. about arts topics other than events.

Writing your Arts Daily Event Description

Arts Daily web listings and radio announcements are designed to provide the most vital pieces of information about your event or opportunity and refer users to ArtsDaily.org and/or to your website or organization for details. We encourage you to use your Event Description space to provide a self-contained, factual summary of your event or opportunity. ONLY the text in the Event Description field will be used in your radio announcement, should your submission be chosen for broadcast.
What to include in the Event Description:

The name of the event or opportunity and a brief description of it

Who is responsible for it (hosting or presenting organization)

Where (venue and city)

When (date and time)

Cost to participate

Deadline for the public to participate (e.g., registration, submission), if applicable. (Note: This is not a deadline for posting on Arts Daily.)

What not to include in the Event Description:

Contact information. Radio announcements will direct listeners to the Arts Daily website where you have entered this information.

Superlatives (such as “the best,” “beautiful,” “a great achievement,” etc.) will be excluded from the final listing.

Want a template? Try this:
(Name of the presenting or host organization) presents (name of the event), (event date) at (event time), at (event venue) in (city, and state if not South Carolina). (Provide a description of the event, so that Arts Daily users will understand what it is and whether or not they would like to attend.) Tickets are (cost). (Provide registration and/or submission requirements and/or deadline, if applicable.)
Questions? We're happy to help. Contact us here.
About Arts Daily
Arts Daily is a partnership between the South Carolina Arts Commission, South Carolina ETV Radio, and the College of Charleston.

Jobs

The South Carolina Arts Commission continues to accept applications for an arts education program director and anticipates beginning the application review process within a few weeks.
The most highly qualified candidate will have experience in K-12 arts education, community arts development, and leadership in the arts. The candidate must also have the ability to build and maintain relationships across a broad section of artists, business, government, arts, education, nonprofit and community leaders to support S.C. Arts Commission programs and services statewide.

Job responsibilities: Design, manage and implement the statewide arts education program and work with constituents, grantees, educators, artists, organizations and partner agencies. Provide consulting and technical assistance to arts organizations, non-arts organizations, schools, artists, and individuals within assigned counties or regions of the state.
Preferred qualifications:
Bachelor’s degree in arts education, an arts discipline, arts administration, or education.
Five (5) years combined professional experience in any of the following:

Conferences

Early-bird rate extended to April 15!
Two new speakers have been added to the lineup for Making Money II: A Seminar for the Non-Profit Arts and Entertainment Industry:Haylee Uecker Mercado, Ph.D., and Bob Heere, Ph.D., an assistant professor and associate professor, respectively, with the Department of Sport and Entertainment Management in USC's College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management. The seminar, scheduled for May 15 in Columbia, will teach participants how to increase income by linking marketing and audience development.
Dr. Mercado specializes in event and facility management. She will present trends in volunteerism and provide techniques to successful recruiting, motivation, and retention of volunteers within your organization. She will also discuss ways to recruit, retain, and effectively utilize your present and future board members.
Dr. Heere, an expert in brand marketing, will present research he has conducted with Columbia's Trustus Theatre and share simple and cost effective ways that your organization can keep and grow a loyal following.
Dr. Mercado and Dr. Heere join featured speakers Donna Walker-Kuhne, president of Walker International Communications Group, Inc., and Armen Shaomian, assistant professor, Department of Sport and Entertainment Management at USC.
Making Money takes place May 15, 2015, from 9 a.m. until 3:30 p.m. at USC’s Capstone Conference Center in Columbia. Early-bird registration is $79 and increases to $99 on April 15.
The South Carolina Arts Commission is partnering with the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management to offer Making Money II.
Space is limited – find out more and register today!
Image - left to right: Donna Walker-Kuhne, Haylee Uecker Mercado, Bob Heere and Armen Shaomian

Training

Mar 30th, 2015

Community change leaders invited to apply for Creative Community Fellowship

Do you have an idea for an arts and cultural project that would solve a problem in your community? If so, National Arts Strategies invites you to apply for a Creative Community Fellowship.
The Creative Community Fellows program has been developed for individuals leading community change through arts and culture. NAS is looking for curious, open and collaborative leaders who are interested in learning and sharing what they learn, who are dedicated to creating healthy neighborhoods and who will recognize and seize opportunities for change. You do not have to be affiliated with an organization. The program is open to applicants from rural, urban, suburban and international communities. International applicants can only apply for the online track.
The program is about community action. All Fellows enter the program with an idea for a cultural project that responds to a problem they want to solve in their communities.
All tuition, including lodging and meals, is completely underwritten. Fellows are only responsible for their transportation.
With the support of The Kresge Foundation, National Arts Strategies built the Creative Community Fellows program for leaders working in this space. Fellows receive tools, training and access to a community of support. This combination will fuel their visions for community change, sparking new ideas and helping propel them into action. This community of change-makers, combined with Fellows from the first cohort, will create a powerful network in which ideas and opportunities flow freely. The inaugural class demonstrated how the collective wisdom of Fellows, mentors, faculty and communities fuels each project and creates a global dialogue about the ways in which culture can restore and animate communities.
The Creative Community Fellows program is presented in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Social Policy & Practice and The Center for Social Impact Strategy.
Application deadline is April 26. Find out more online.
Via: National Arts Strategies

Research

Mar 27th, 2015

When music is medicine for kids coping with cancer

Whether for relaxation or rehabilitation, music helps cancer patients cope and fulfill physical and emotional needs. Video produced by Laila Kazmi, shot by Aileen Imperial and edited by Greg Davis, KCTS 9.
When she was 21-months-old, Allistaire was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. Now four, she has spent more than half her life in and out of cancer hospitals. Her schedule includes exhaustive medical treatments, but there’s one session she looks forward to each week: music therapy with Betsy Hartman.
For patients who need exercise, but feel too exhausted because of the harsh medicines and treatments they are receiving, music provides a physical outlet.
“When you have a guitar, a drum or a maraca in your hand, sometimes you can’t help but dance,” said Hartman, who works solely with patients in the Cancer Unit at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
Allistaire plays the maracas. Photo courtesy of KCTS 9
References to the use of music for therapeutic purposes date back to ancient times and across cultures. In the United States, the field gained official recognition in 1950 with the establishment of the National Association of Music Therapy. However, music therapy work was happening in the U.S. long before that. It was in the early 1800s when Benjamin Rush, the father of American psychiatry, advocated for music as a therapeutic tool. Two of Rush’s students went on to write dissertations about the use of music as therapy.
A life-altering diagnosis and subsequent treatments can be emotionally taxing. For many of Hartman’s school-age patients, treatment means missing school, friends and their daily routine.
“For kids, that’s hard,” Hartman said. “So, as music therapists, we work with patients to express some of those feelings through songwriting or listening to different lyrics.”
David Knott, also a music therapist at Seattle Children’s Hospital, has been practicing music therapy for over ten years. While Hartman is dedicated to the Cancer Unit, Knott works across the hospital and sees children with many different ailments.
Music therapist Betsy Hartman plays the harp. Photo courtesy of KCTS 9
“There is a lot of interest from neuroscientists in examining how music is processed in the brain, and some really interesting studies are being done or have been done,” says Knott.
Research conducted by Dr. Robert Zatorre and his team, for example, found that dopamine was released when listening to music. “Music activates reward centers in the brain,” Knott said.
According to the American Cancer Society, some studies have shown that music can help with short-term pain reduction, as well as help reduce anxiety and nausea caused by chemotherapy.
For Hartman, working with her young patients is a deeply rewarding experience for her.
“I can only imagine that it must be one of the most vulnerable and scary times in their lives, and the fact that they let me come in and offer something like music to them is an honor.”

Call for Art

Mar 26th, 2015

Middle and high school students – enter the VSA Playwright Discovery Competition!

Application deadline is April 13.
Middle and high school students are invited to explore the disability experience—in their own lives, the lives of others, or through fictional characters—by writing a script. Writers with and without disabilities are encouraged to submit a one-act script for stage or screen. Entries may be the work of an individual student or a collaboration by up to five students.
The competition has three divisions. One winning script is selected in each of the Primary and Junior Divisions (grades 6-7 and 8-9 respectively). Winners in these divisions will receive $500 for arts programs at their schools, along with an award recognizing the student for excellence in script writing.
In the Senior Division (grades 10-12), a select number of applicants will be brought to Washington, D.C. for the VSA Playwright Discovery Weekend Intensive, which will include pre-professional activities such as playwriting workshops, roundtable discussions, and staged readings. A select number of Senior Division winners' scripts will be chosen for a Millennium Stage performance.
More information and application instructions are available online.
Application deadline is April 13, 2015.
Via: VSA

Recognition

Mar 26th, 2015

South Carolina through the eyes of its artisans

Kudos to our colleagues at the South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism for this art-inspired promotional video produced for the state’s tourism marketing program. Artisans featured are claysmith Rob Gentry of Pendleton, basket artists Angela and Darryl Stoneworth of Mt. Pleasant, and painter Mary Gilkerson of Columbia.

South Carolina is home to an array of artistic talent. Whether you’re touring an art gallery or admiring a sweet grass basket stand on Highway 17, you’ll discover every piece of art captures the local pride of the Palmetto State. Check out this short video highlighting a few of the artisans behind these works, and get inspired for your next trip to South Carolina.

Via: South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism

News

Mar 26th, 2015

Florence Little Theatre welcomes new executive director

Florence Little Theatre President Dan Abernathy is thrilled to introduce FLT’s new executive director, Leila Ibrahim, who joined the staff on Feb. 23. “After a nationwide search, we are excited to have Leila bring her experience and creativity to the FLT family,” commented Abernathy. “As we continue to raise the quality of our productions and programs, we are fortunate to have someone with Leila’s ability to raise the quality of the overall operations.We expect many changes over the next couple of years that will make the holistic experience of attending an event match the wonderful productions that FLT brings to life.” Born and raised outside Atlanta, Ga., Leila comes to Florence from Philadelphia where she attended graduate school and worked as box office manager for an arena. She has a masters degree in arts administration from Drexel University in Philadelphia and a BBA degree from Mercer University in Macon, Ga. All through her college years in Macon, she served as the assistant to the opera director at Mercer, working with students and their productions.
Although not a performer, Leila enjoyed working backstage with various productions. “I’ve done almost everything except perform,” she said. “I love the theatre and being a part of the process. Although I don’t have the talent to perform on stage, I can still support the performance.” Leila realized during her undergraduate studies that she could combine her love of theatre and working behind the scenes with a business degree. While a college student, she interned with the Grand Opera House in Macon and after graduation spent five years as fulltime staff. She served many roles with this 1,000-seat venue which hosts touring productions, including interim director.
Leila also has worked as a consultant with Tickets.com helping with training and box office conversion, so she has experience working on both sides of the box office. Her first goal at FLT is to the upgrade the ticketing software, she said. Leila said everyone she has met since moving to Florence has been very welcoming. “I feel part of the FLT family already.” She is impressed with the FLT’s gorgeous facility and long history of excellence in shows. “You are on par with the professional theatres I have worked with,” she commented. “I am excited to be here and excited to work with the volunteers, ticket holders, the board of directors, and to continue to produce excellent shows.” For more information about the Florence Little Theatre or to speak with Leila, you may contact her at 662-3731.

News

Mar 25th, 2015

Arts in black and white. Is Columbia a culturally segregated city?

When The Avett Brothers played the Township Auditorium in mid-March, it was a big deal for Columbia — or at least some of its residents. The North Carolina-based Americana band, probably best known for its 2009 song “I and Love and You,” played a virtually unprecedented three-night run. Free Times put the show on its cover, and thousands of people came out every night.
Just as the March 7 performance was about to start, Free Times tweeted out to its 18,000 followers: “Waiting for @theavettbros … who’s here?”
“Almost entirely white people,” came a reply from the Twitterverse.

It was breathtakingly true. At the Saturday night show, at least, there didn’t seem to be a single black person in the audience.In the specific case of The Avett Brothers, this shouldn’t be a surprise: Bluegrass, folk and Americana bands draw mostly white fans everywhere, not just in Columbia.But it’s not just Avett Brothers concerts where the racial breakdown at local arts and entertainment events is often skewed in one direction or the other. Go to a ballet, an art opening, a play, a classical music concert or a lot of the city’s festivals, and you’ll often find an overwhelmingly white audience in a city where 42 percent of the residents are black.Of course, there are also events where you’ll find much the opposite — gospel plays and R&B shows at the Township, the Black Expo, the Harambee Festival at Benedict College, the Jubilee Festival and Hip-Hop Family Day, among others.What’s harder to find are the events that are truly integrated.“This city is very divided in the arts when it comes to race,” says Sherard Duvall, director of media education at the Nickelodeon Theatre and one of the organizers of Hip-Hop Family Day, a festival celebrating hip-hop music and culture. “Black people go to black arts events, and white people go to white arts events.”
That’s certainly not Duvall’s intent with Hip Hop Family Day — organizers try to define it “by what it is, not by who it is,” he says. Yet, like lots of other events in the city, it tends to draw a crowd of mostly one race.
This week, Free Times looks at cultural segregation in Columbia — why it exists, whether it’s changing and why it matters.
Alone in a Crowd
Dalvin Spann, an artist and founding member of the local artists collective Izms of Art, was born and raised in Columbia. He went to Dent Middle School and studied at the Savannah College of Art and Design.
He’s been going to art openings and other arts-related events for a long time. And for as long as he can remember, he’s usually been one of the only black people to show up at these events.
“That’s what I was accustomed to seeing,” he says. But, he adds, “It depends on where I go.”
At an event where there’s a likelihood of seeing works by black artists, he says, there’s more likely to be black people in the audience, too.
At the Black Expo, he says, “The attendees are going knowing that there is the possibility of seeing black art there, so they tend to gather there more — as opposed to a gallery where there might or might not be a black artist.”
Terrance Henderson, a frequent choreographer and performer at Trustus Theatre, states it more bluntly: “There’s a lot of cultural segregation … most people live in segregated neighborhoods,” he says. “It’s a segregated lifestyle.”
A 2009 statewide study by the South Carolina Arts Commission found that black people are slightly less engaged in the arts than white people — 39 percent of black people had not attended an arts event in the past year, compared to 30 percent of white people. The study defined arts participation widely, to include not only attendance at concerts and other performing arts events, but also attendance at school and community performances and engaging in the arts through writing, painting or playing an instrument.
Though many of Columbia’s neighborhoods do split along racial lines, overall the city used to be evenly divided racially. Fifteen years ago, Columbia was nearly a 50-50 city — 48 percent of its residents were white and 47 percent were black, with the rest split among Latino, Asian or other ethnicities. It’s now 52 percent white and 42 percent black.
Even before the percentage of black residents started to decline, a Knight Foundation study conducted around the turn of the 21st century found that white residents were generally happier with the city’s cultural offerings, with 83 percent of whites saying Columbia was an “excellent” or “good” place to live, while only 69 percent of blacks agreed. It shouldn’t be surprising, perhaps, in a city where black-oriented arts groups have tended to be — and still are — small and poorly funded.
There are no recent studies examining perceptions of Columbia by race. Culturally, though, the city has been gradually offering more to its black and minority residents in recent years even as its population has grown modestly more white.
Events such as Hip-Hop Family Day, the Main Street Latin Fest and Famously Hot New Year, which has presented old-school R&B headliners three of the past four years, have helped serve as a counterbalance to staples such as St. Pat’s in Five Points, which is the city’s largest annual event and draws a predominantly white crowd. With such shows as Run the Jewels and Waka Flocka Flame, the Music Farm, too, has offered the hope of diverse programming in a town where music clubs have often tended to cater to white or black audiences, but not both.
Non-Legal Barriers
To the extent that audiences still tend to split along racial lines today, that split is a matter of things like habit, choice, exposure and economic opportunity — not a matter of law. That’s a big difference from the 1950s, when blacks had to enter the Township Auditorium through a side door and were only allowed to sit in the balcony.
Though legal barriers are long gone, other barriers remain — some easy to define, others less so. Part of participating in the city’s cultural offerings is feeling comfortable in participating.
Artist Leo Twiggs remembers when blacks were not allowed in institutions like the Columbia Museum of Art — and, well after formal integration, when blacks still didn’t feel welcome there or at other museums. (Full disclosure: This writer is married to the deputy director of the CMA.)
“There is a kind of aloofness that is personified by museums,” Twiggs says. “Museums never had signs during the years of segregation … but you just knew that was not a place that you could go.”
That status didn’t change overnight.

“Because museums were this place that it was just assumed you couldn’t go, even after desegregation, museums had to work very hard to get African-Americans to participate,” Twiggs says.Brandolyn Pinkston, former board chair of Friends of African-American Art and Culture, an affiliate group of the Columbia Museum of Art, recalls a story from her father, who passed away last year at the age of 90. He went to college in the Midwest at a time when there were few black college students and blacks lived largely separately from whites.“He loved classical music,” she says, but when he went to concerts, “People thought there to work at the reception.”Columbia is well past such perceptions today. African-Americans can and do attend all types of arts and cultural events in the city and are freely welcomed at them — but they often do so at rates far lower than their representation in the local population.At a lot of events, Duvall says, people feel subtly excluded — not like they can’t attend, but more like they shouldn’t.“A lot of people — black and white — feel like, ‘That’s not for me. They don’t want me there. They didn’t do this for me,” he says.
Spann says that even today, galleries and other arts groups “need to keep in mind how to bring in everybody, how to make it appealing to everyone.” And to make that happen, he says, it’s up to both institutions and individuals to come out of their comfort zones.
It’s About Experience — Not Race
Pinkston has a story to tell about inclusiveness and participation in the arts.
She was at the Columbia Museum of Art one day when she saw a family wandering outside on the plaza. They were trying to decide whether to come in, and they were leaning against it.
“‘Oh no, we’ve got on jeans,’” Pinkston recalls them saying.
“And I said, ‘Come on in — it’s not that kind of place.’”
The family was white.
Pinkston, who use to head the S.C. Department of Consumer Affairs, tells the story to make a simple point: Some people are intimidated by participating in the arts, and that intimidation doesn’t necessarily have anything to do with race.
Ken May, director of the S.C. Arts Commission, says a person’s level of education is the strongest predictor of participation in the arts.
Spann echoes the point.
At each stage of his artistic development in middle school and high school, Spann says, “I was kind of taken under the wing of an art teacher.”
What was perhaps the biggest stage of his development — attending the Savannah College of Art and Design — came about because the college came directly into his high school.
“I didn’t know about SCAD until they came to my school,” Spann says. “When you come directly to the students and the kids, then they become aware — and then their parents become aware,” he says. “You have to put it in front of them; I think that plays a large part of it.”

It helped at a certain point to have black role models, too, Spann says. His middle school and high school art teachers were both white, and Spann learned a lot from both of them. But it really hit home with Spann when he met and learned about black artists like Twiggs, Tom Feelings and Tyrone Geter.“They had to fight a little harder and make sure they were better than the best, and their skills were so on point,” Spann says. “I think there is not enough discussion between people like Leo and people in their teens.”Pinkston places a strong emphasis on education, too.“I truly believe that you have to start with young minds and keep that process going,” she says. “When schools can’t take children on field trips or get the necessary supplies to create that expansive mind, or bring in a group of actors or fund transportation, that’s where the limitation of resources or exposure comes in.”To help bridge that experience gap, Pinkston is part of a nonprofit, The Links Inc., that commits part of its budget to taking students to arts and cultural events.Like Pinkston, Twiggs emphasizes the importance of arts-related experiences — especially for those kids whose parents aren’t middle class.
“Those kids from well-to-do schools, you are just preaching to the choir — because their parents will take them anyway,” he says.
Twiggs founded the Stanback Museum at S.C. State University and taught art appreciation for many years.
“You never know what it does,” Twiggs says, recalling one student who told him she cried when she got a chance to see the Coliseum in Rome in person after learning about it in Twiggs’ class. “I have just had so many students over the years I have taught art appreciation … it was just so important for me to instill that in them, because I knew that they did not have that experience before they got there.”
Building a Foundation
In January, Columbia’s most progressive and only professional theater company, Trustus Theatre, presented a play called In the Red and Brown Water, which featured a predominantly black cast.
On the weekend the play opened, most of the audience members were white.
“We chose it because the narrative is strong — not because it’s a white or black cast,” says Larry Hembree, executive director of Trustus.
Because of its black cast, though, there was some expectation at the theater that at least a significant proportion of the audience would be black.
Chad Henderson, director of marketing at the theater, was fielding questions about how the play was being promoted.
“People mentioned talking to churches,” he says. “But it’s not like it was a gospel thing.”
Then one of the cast members took it upon herself to try to attract a black audience. She posted on her Facebook page about how she was upset that her friends weren’t supporting the work she and the other cast members were doing.
The post led to a lively discussion on social media — and also brought in a lot of black audience members the next weekend.
Trustus staffers make it clear that they’re not trying to fill quotas — nobody is counting the number of tickets sold to black people. But they are trying to be inclusive, and part of the reason the cast member’s Facebook post had an effect was because of work done at Trustus over a long period of time.
Jim Thigpen, who founded Trustus along with his wife, Kay, made it a priority to recruit and train local black actors, Hembree says.
“I was not used to seeing black actors,” Hembree says — 15 or 20 years ago, there just wasn’t a significant contingent of trained black actors performing in Columbia’s major theaters. But having that base of actors connected to the theater has helped the organization build a foundation for diversifying its audience.
“A strong core of our group is our African-American company members,” says Chad Henderson.
Adds Terrance Henderson: “It’s not the point to just personally identify with everything,” he says. But, he adds, there is meaning in producing works that resonate with black audiences.
To see part of their culture “accepted in a wider venue,” he says, makes black people “feel validated.”
A Dialogue, Not a Month
Arts leaders say privately that they’re trying hard to diversify their audience base. Many do things like outreach programs at local schools, and some offer free or reduced-price tickets in an effort to attract underserved audiences.
Even so, it can be an uphill battle — and there are some types of outreach that are more effective than others.
“It’s hard to get people out of their comfort zone if they’re not comfortable,” Duvall says. “It’s like having a difficult conversation.”
It’s on arts groups, Duvall says, to create “a comfortable place.”
That can be harder than it sounds, given hard-wired perceptions in the community.
Take just one example: The historical perception of Lexington County as a not-so-welcoming place for blacks can still be a barrier. Duvall brings up the example of trying to offer programming geared toward black audiences at venues like New Brookland Tavern and Conundrum Music Hall.
It’s “that West Columbia thing,” he says. “ people will not cross the bridge.”
The S.C. Arts Commission has learned through its own efforts how hard it can be to connect with communities it hasn’t traditionally worked with. In recent years, the commission has been involved in efforts to establish the Gullah-Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor.
In the early stages of an outreach effort, May says, it’s important “to do more listening than talking.”
He also says it’s time-intensive and takes a lot of human contact and relationship building.
“You’ve got to be in it for the long haul,” he says. “This is not a short run.”
Local artist Michaela Pilar Brown, who moderated a discussion at the Columbia Museum of Art in January featuring three of the state’s top African-American artists, says it’s hard to attract black audiences without having black staff members.
“It is difficult to come into a space and not feel completely at home — and that has to do as much with the people who are employed there as with what’s on the wall,” she says. “What’s on the walls will change when the employees are more diverse.”
Brown is quick to point out that she’s not singling out the museum.
“That’s true for all institutions,” she says. “You can’t give lip service to diversity without addressing it on the staff.” When blacks and Latinos “are in positions of leadership,” she says, “then you start to speak to diversity in your program offerings.”
At Trustus Theatre, Hembree sees it slightly differently. To him, it’s the art that comes first and the diversity that naturally follows it.
“People get grants because they beef up the number of blacks on their board,” Hembree says. “‘We’ve got to find three awesome black bankers — who are they?’” he says, imitating the mindset. “I’m not going to buy into that.”
Instead, Hembree says, it’s about producing the right plays and “programming from the heart” — which will naturally lead to producing plays that reflect the diversity of the human condition.

Terrance Henderson says it is important to him that there are black board members and staff members. Otherwise, he says, it sends a signal that the only place for blacks at Trustus is on the stage.But, he adds, the theater is already achieving that balance without adopting a quota mentality.“There’s a sincerity that is evident” at Trustus, Henderson says. “It permeates through their staffing and their marketing.”He contrasts the Trustus approach with what he sees from other organizations that he sees as “not about being engaged” with a minority community as much as just “trying to sell tickets to a community.”At the Nickelodeon Theatre, Columbia’s primary home for independent film, Duvall echoes the point.“It’s not about marketing per se,” he says. “It’s about relationships.”

Take, for example, the theater’s Civil Rights Sundays.“‘Civil Rights Sundays’ sounds black,” Duvall admits. “But civil rights are human rights — it’s about your rights as a citizen.”In organizing the series, the Nickelodeon works hard to reach out to all parts of the community. So, if the theme is protest, for example, they don’t limit panel speakers to civil rights activists — anyone who has experience in a protest movement of any kind might be asked to join the discussion. That, in turn, opens up a discussion with a broader swath of the community. The movies, too, aren’t always about black America.“At the end of the day, it’s ‘Do I feel included? — and not just when you are ready to include me,’” Duvall says. When people feel like, “‘This is for me, too,’ then they will take part.”More Diversity Means Less ControlSometimes, making people feel included can take an institution out of its comfort zone.
Ken May at the Arts Commission says he’s seen a long evolution in how the Columbia Museum of Art has sought to attract black audiences.
“Ten years ago, some of their efforts were pretty clumsy,” he says. Now, though, he sees “maturity” in the museum’s approach.
The Friends of African-American Art and Culture group is a key example. Instead of trying to ‘target’ a community in a quick-fix, numbers-boosting effort, the museum has sought to have an ongoing conversation with a group it hopes to engage as an audience over the long term.
It’s the difference between an organization presenting a black-themed exhibition or performance once a year during Black History Month — in an effort to sell tickets as well as to show its inclusiveness — and actually inviting representatives of the black community to have a hand in determining the institution’s programming.
“You have to be willing to share control,” May says.

Arts groups are under a fair amount of political pressure to be more inclusive. Both the City of Columbia and Richland County, which fund the arts through hospitality taxes, are keenly interested in how local organizations are serving minority communities. Arts groups are routinely asked how they are diversifying their boards and their programming, and privately there are complaints about perceived inequities in public funding between established organizations with white leaders and smaller organizations with black leaders.At the Arts Commission, May says that political pressure is growing at foundations, too.At some major foundations, he says, “The discussion has gone from equity in access to equity in funding,” May says, a shift that “has pretty profound implications.”As arts groups seek to diversify their audiences and their programming, however, there are limits — and perhaps underlying problems with the whole conversation, May says.The assumption “is that everybody should go because it’s ‘high art,’” he says. “There’s arrogance in that. In fact, nobody likes everything — no art form appeals to everyone.”To put it plainly, what if the people arts groups want to reach simply aren’t interested in what’s being offered?
That’s a difficult question. Orchestras and ballet companies, for example, mostly perform works from the Western canon. To what extent should audiences be educated on the virtues of these classics — versus institutions expanding their understanding of what counts as art?
As art forms and audiences evolve, there’s a case to be made for re-examining the whole paradigm and reconsidering which types of art deserve a home in major arts institutions.
Look at an event like Cola-Con, a local event celebrating comics and hip-hop culture.
“That is animation, it’s not classical European art,” Pinkston says. “But that was a huge event for a lot of people in this town.”
And not just black or white people; Cola-Con has typically been one of the more integrated cultural events in the city.
Columbia’s Great Strength
Though its cultural habits still tend to skew black or white, there’s also a freshness to Columbia’s cultural scene that shows great promise.
Asked if Columbia has an inclusive arts culture, Spann brings up a show called Post Graffiti, put on by the Columbia Museum of Art in 2010.
For the show, the museum allowed graffiti artists to paint on one of its walls for a community exhibition. It was quite a step for a museum known for its Renaissance collection. But it attracted artists from outside the city and was covered by the website Art Daily.
“We did the Post Graffiti event, and we had artists from Charlotte,” Spann recalls. “They were honored. They said, ‘We can’t get a museum to show our work in Charlotte, but we can go to Columbia and post on the walls.’”
Among Columbia’s strengths, Spann says, are its size and the relative open-mindedness and accessibility of its leadership.
“You have transplants from other places playing key roles in getting things going here,” he says. And the arts scene is growing, he says, because the relatively small size of the city makes it easy to get out to different venues and meet people.
That’s a Columbia trait that many have recognized. Several arts leaders with experience in other cities say Columbia stands out for its openness to collaboration across disciplines and institutions.
May says things are definitely changing in Columbia.
Though there’s still a sense of “a dominant culture and a marginalized culture,” he says, he also sees a lot of good things happening.
“Columbia has changed a lot — the larger Columbia, not just the arts community,” he says. The city has become “more cosmopolitan and tolerant … than we have been historically.”
Recent events such as the ColumbiaSC 63 project, focusing on the city’s civil rights history, and the Burning of Columbia commemoration, have served as important points of reflection, May says.
While there’s much work that remains to be done before all of Columbia’s residents feel equally invested in the cultural life of the community, the trend seems to be headed in the right direction. What seems normal now, May says — such as the city’s open acceptance of its gay and lesbian community, for example — would not have been 10 or 15 years ago.
And, he says, “I think it’s accelerating.”

Recognition

Mar 25th, 2015

S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts student awarded national writing prize

The Scholastic Art and Writing Awards is a 92-year-old institution that recognizes talented young artists and writers. One of the top winners this year was Charleston native Grant McClure.
In 2014, the competition received around 300,000 entries from students, including hundreds from South Carolina teens. About 1,900 across the U.S. were selected as national-level winners, according to Scholastic’s Brittany Sullivan. And 16 high school seniors were awarded the Portfolio Gold Medal (eight for writing, eight for visual art), which is accompanied by a $10,000 cash scholarship.
McClure, a senior at the South Carolina Governor’s School for the Arts in Greenville, was one of the 16. He won in the writing category. He hopes to spend his $10,000 at Wofford College, a private school in Spartanburg with a reputable creative writing program. Or maybe he’ll attend Clemson, he said. He will likely major in environmental studies and minor in writing.
McClure attended Charleston Charter School for Math and Science for his first two years of high school and played varsity basketball there. His father, Arnie McClure, is a local architect; his mother, Mitzi, is a registered nurse.
Growing up near Colonial Lake, McClure took note of Charleston’s beauty, culture and contradictions, he said. His interest in peeling back the veil to explore the nuances and conflict beneath the surface informs his writing.
He has written short fiction, poetry, personal essays, mysteries and more, he said. Currently he’s working on a novella, focusing on character development.
Of 44 national winners from South Carolina, 24 are from the Charleston metropolitan area, and 19 of those are Gold and Silver medal winners at Charleston County School of the Arts.
Local Gold Medal winners include: Zoe Abedon (SOA, 12th grade); Arden Dodge (SOA, 8th grade); Kathryn Dorn (SOA, 7th grade); Maclean Hueske (SOA, 8th grade); Jessica Leiker (SOA, 9th grade); Julia Lynn (SOA, 11th grade); Carson Peaden (SOA, 9th grade, Best in Grade award for poetry); and Courtney Wickstrom (SOA, 9th grade, Best in Grade award for poetry).
Wando High School senior Henry Ballou won a Silver Medal with Distinction for his art portfolio. Silver medals were awarded to 13 others at Goose Creek High School, Ashley Hall and SOA.

Recognition

Mar 24th, 2015

South Carolina to honor Folk Heritage Award winners

Congratulations to the James Brothers of Lyman, S.C., and to Betty McDaniel, of Pickens, S.C., who have been named the 2015 Jean Laney Harris Folk Heritage Award recipients! The awards will be presented May 13 in Columbia at Southside Baptist Church, 702 Whaley St., during a special concert and ceremony beginning at 6:15 p.m. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
The James Brothers (Marshall, pictured left, and Leon, pictured right) have been singing traditional music since the 1940s. They call themselves the “Old School Gospel Duo” and since 1995, have been performing in an a capella style. The duo continues an active performance schedule at churches, festivals, family reunions and other community events in the Upstate.
McDaniel has been a tireless advocate of Appalachian culture in South Carolina for more than 35 years. She has been the driving force behind the exemplary Young Appalachian Musicians (YAM) and Preserving our Southern Appalachian Music (POSAM) programs in the Upstate and has made it her mission to disseminate traditional Appalachian dance, music, foodways, and stories to audiences of all ages.
Also on May 13, the award recipients will be honored by McKissick Museum during a ticketed luncheon and by the S.C. Arts Foundation during the South Carolina Arts Gala, a fundraiser supporting the programs of the S.C. Arts Commission. For more information about the luncheon, contact Ja-Nae Epps, jmepps0@mailbox.sc.edu, (803) 777-2876. The gala begins at 7:15 p.m. in the Grand Hall, 701 Whaley St.; tickets are $75 per person.
The Folk Heritage Award, jointly managed by the South Carolina Arts Commission and McKissick Museum, is named for the late Jean Laney Harris, an ardent supporter of the state's cultural heritage. The award was created by the legislature in 1987 to recognize lifetime achievement in the folk arts. The artistic traditions represented by the award are significant because they have endured, often for hundreds of years.
For more information about the Folk Heritage Awards and the ceremony, contact Doug Peach, at (803) 734-8764. Also visit McKissick Museum's website or the S.C. Arts Commission website.